The China National Space Administration (CNSA) said Tuesday that China’s lunar exploration program will conduct two additional launch missions to prepare the way for the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). The first launch is anticipated as early as 2026.
China Central Television (CCTV) said Tuesday that the plan calls for China to launch the Chang’e-7 mission in 2026 and the Chang’e-8 mission in 2028.
Bian Zhigang, deputy director of the CNSA, told the Global Times that the Chang’e-8 mission will validate technologies for in-situ resource utilization on the moon. This will lay the groundwork for the future construction of the ILRS, which is anticipated to be established by around 2035. Meanwhile, Chang’e-7 will survey the lunar South Pole’s environment and resources.
There will be two stages to the ILRS’s construction, which China and Russia jointly initiated.
The first stage will involve establishing a basic model of the station at the lunar South Pole region. This station will be able to perform scientific operations within a 100-kilometer radius.
This phase will use an integrated information network between the Earth and the moon to facilitate interconnectedness and interoperability among diverse missions, such as manned lunar landings, unmanned lunar exploration, and international collaboration.
This phase will include a comprehensive lunar research platform with key features.
The second phase will concentrate on increasing the capabilities of lunar stations, with the goal of creating a complete network by 2050.
This network will be based on the lunar South Pole station, with exploration nodes located at the lunar equator and the moon’s far side. A lunar orbital station will serve as the hub.
With both short-term manned and long-term unmanned missions, the station will have a sizable, continuously running multipurpose research platform.
China’s Chang’e-8 mission
According to Guan Feng, deputy director of the CNSA Lunar Exploration and Aerospace Engineering Center, the Chang’e-8 mission will consider communication capabilities when determining whether it will be feasible to live or access the Internet on the moon.
“There will definitely be wireless networks and energy on the moon, and scientists are still researching the feasibility of growing vegetables there, an area where the Chang’e-8 mission may conduct scientific studies,” Guan stated.
Senegal and several African institutions announced their involvement in the ILRS program in September, increasing the moon base’s membership to over 40 international organizations and more than 10 countries worldwide.
China and Russia have joined forces with Venezuela, Belarus, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, South Africa, Egypt, Nicaragua, Thailand, Serbia, Kazakhstan, and Senegal. US and European organisations, such as the International Lunar Observatory Association in Hawaii, the Swiss business Nano-SPACE for Cooperation, and the Thales Group in France, have also joined the program.
While meeting with representatives of space scientists and engineers who took part in the research and development of the Chang’e-6 lunar mission at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, President Xi Jinping urged staff in China’s space industry to keep up the good work and speed up space endeavours.
Change-6 probe
China launched the Chang’e-6 probe on May 3 of this year. Its returner, carrying 1,935.3 grams of samples from the moon’s far side, landed in north China on June 25.
According to Xi, Chang’e-6 achieved another significant milestone in China’s space, science, and technology endeavours when it collected samples from the moon’s far side for the first time in human history, breaking through several crucial technologies. For China’s lunar exploration project, it marks a significant turning point.
Over the last twenty years, the lunar exploration project has concentrated on important core technologies and produced successful outcomes in engineering practice, scientific discovery, technological innovation, achievement application, and international cooperation.
According to him, it has paved the way for excellent and reasonably priced lunar exploration, significantly advancing human space exploration and China’s space industry.
Xi emphasized that the space industry has accomplished historic, high-quality, and revolutionary development in the 75 years since the People’s Republic of China was founded.
With ten successful sample return missions from the moon’s near side, there have been over 100 lunar exploration missions worldwide since the 1950s. But according to Xinhua News Agency, exploring the moon’s far side has never been easy.
China’s Chang’e-4 defeated the world’s challenge to land on the moon’s far side in January 2019. The Chang’e-5 mission returned the nation’s first lunar samples from the moon’s near side in December 2020, the freshest ones since the 1970s.
On June 25, 2024, the Chang’e-6 probe safely landed in the Siziwang Banner in North China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, with the first set of lunar samples ever taken from the moon’s far side in human history.
Professor of Aerospace Engineering at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics Kang Guohua told the Global Times that the mission will significantly impact the global aerospace industry and set a new record for China’s lunar exploration program.
Kang said that China has shown leadership and influence in space exploration through the Chang’e-6 mission, adding that samples taken from the moon’s far side are extremely valuable for deep space exploration and scientific study because of their uniqueness.
Large-scale, intricate, and highly integrated projects like this have gradually advanced important technologies like high-speed re-entry and return, soft landing on the moon, and Earth-moon transfer orbit design.
According to observers, it has also sparked technological advancements in new tools, materials, and energy sources.
Meanwhile, China’s “circle of friends” in lunar exploration keeps growing.
The European Space Agency, France, Italy, and Pakistan sent four international scientific payloads on the Chang’e-6 mission. According to media reports, the Chang’e-8 offers the international community a payload capacity of about 200 kilograms and has received over 30 cooperation applications to date, while the Chang’e-7 mission has chosen six international payloads.
Looking beyond the moon, China revealed earlier this month its ambitious plan to launch the Tianwen-3 mission. According to Liu Jizhong, the mission’s chief designer, the mission aims to collect samples from Mars and return them to Earth by 2028. Expected to be the first attempt of its kind on the Red Planet, the mission will entail global cooperation in sample and data sharing and international cooperation in the payload.
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Geoff Thomas is an award winning journalist known for his sharp insights and no-nonsense reporting style. Over the years he has worked for Reuters and the Canadian Press covering everything from political scandals to human interest stories. He brings a clear and direct approach to his work.